Crumpled Cigarettes
by RuthanneReid
Summary: Just a little closure to the series - hoky, but hopefully uplifting. SPOILER WARNING.


_This is death._

_I have had some time to analyze it now; it is not what I was told to expect by my elders - but then, they were wrong about a lot of things._

_"A shooting star, grandfather?"_

_"The tear of a warrior... who had no faith in the Great Spirit."_

_The voices again. I hear them, every once in a while; I'm not sure why. I see no one; and yet... when those voices come, I do not feel so horribly alone. _

_Did I say alone? Well; I am not completely ALONE. After all, it seems that others who die must pass this way... only I do not know why I do not follow them._

_Twice now, I have seen someone I thought I knew; several times, there was simply a sense of familiarity about them as they swept by, and once...._

_Once, it was my fallen brother. __I don't know where he went. I could not watch._

_I cannot say that I wept when the elders began to pass me by; they have more than earned their deaths, although I suppose I am in no place to question._

_Gren passed me. He/she looked so... content to be dead. The only truly content one I have seen, and he/she went in a slightly altered direction than the rest; why? I don't know. Everyone else has just slipped past me and down, slightly to the left. _

_Gren... Gren went to the right._

_I wish I knew why I was going nowhere._

_Three times, I have seen someone appear - hazy, indistinct - and then disappear again. Perhaps that is what they call a near-death experience? I don't know - although I have to wonder what they'd think if they saw me here. I doubt they'd know who I am; I removed my Red Dragon garb the moment I found myself able to do so, and did not question until afterward just WHY I had it with me in the first place. It seems odd, but the spirits I see sometimes carry something - little or big - that symbolizes what meant much to them in life._

_I suppose that says a lot about me._

_ More spirits pass, all without seeing me, and I am still here. Perhaps I am waiting for something? I don't know; this is hardly hell or a purgatory, nor is this reincarnation. I seem to simply be... stuck._

_ ...maybe something... is waiting for me?_

_A woman passes me; a beautiful woman, and one whom I know because I and all with me were ordered to shoot her on sight. _

_She carries a single rose._

_"Lin," she says, surprised; she knows me? She can SEE me? Perhaps her dealings with Spike... _

_Or Vicious. But that makes no sense..._

_"Julia," I reply, not knowing if she can hear me or not, and then watch as she is swept away - to the right. Well. That makes two. _

_I think, could I move... that is the direction I would choose to go. _

_I no longer wish to go on the path well-trodden._

_A flood of people pass me now; men I have known and worked with, more elders, some of whom look as though their faces were pressed into an airplane propeller - no doubt the work of the man for whose life I gave my own. Vicious had planned to take over the syndicate; it appears he succeeded._

_Suddenly, I am very, very glad to be dead._

_More time passes, more spirits go by, and then I hear a familiar voice. _

_"Heh. And they'd said you'd go to hell because you died protecting me."_

_...speak of the devil._

_Vicious is being swept past me, like all the rest, smirking at me even as he goes, even though he grimaces because the sword he carries is impaled through his hands; and he can see me. Why? Why only these two?_

_"So you died," I say. "Some justice has prevailed."_

_"Justice?" he laughs, already disappearing from sight. "At least I didn't die protecting the RULES...." he says as an attempt at a parting shot, and then he is gone; swept to the left, like the others. _

_Well, I'm definitely not going in that direction._

_ If I get the choice._

_The rules? Perhaps I did die for the rules; it seems so... useless now, all of it. All my discipline, all my work... for the rules? Honor... rules... What's the difference?_

_I suppose death has given me a new perspective._

_Maybe THAT is my "fate;" to float here, watching the world go by on its way to... somewhere... and having to stay, knowing that I DID waste my life - and my death - on rules and on a man who did not earn it._

_Speaking of death..._

_"Yo, Lin," Spike says, and as I had my Red Dragon garments with me, he has something which similarly meant much to him: his pack of cigarettes. He floats toward me, lighting one up as he moves. "So you DID wait."_

_"You can see me?" I ask, surprised again; what, only Red Dragon members can see me? Nonsense; plenty of them have passed before... and then it occurs to me what he said. "'Did wait?' You knew?"_

_He shrugs. "Nope; but I'm glad you did. You're not worth him."_

_And whatever that means, I have no time to process, because he stops right in front of me. He holds out his hand. "Give me your hand, Lin," he says, fixing me with his mismatched eyes - still mismatched after death. Perhaps the one DOES see the past... "You've waited here long enough." He smiles. "Sorry I took so long."_

_I look at him blankly. "...my hand?"_

_"Yeah. You don't want to follow that son of a bitch you died for, do you?" He relights his cigarette - oxygen seems to be MILDLY scarce down here - and holds out his hand again. "Only time I ever prayed in my life. Guess it worked." There is a comfortable silence for a moment, then he shrugs again. "Well? Gimme your hand."_

_"...where are we going?" I ask as I obey, filled with confusion and elated because... because..._

_I don't know why, exactly. Maybe because such a man as Spike was moved to pray for me._

_He shrugs one last time. "Dunno. But it's gotta be better than here."_

_And the moment our hands touch, I begin to move; finally, with blessed relief, I am MOVING - with Spike._

_We are going down... and to the right._

_And after a moment I realize it is not dark as I had first supposed, but LIGHT - and there are colors down here, and something like fresh air that renews my soul... __and Spike lets go of my hand because he has gone to join hands with another - Julia - and I am moving past them both and I am filled with sudden, tear-birthing joy for NO reason..._

_... and my brother is here. _

_Yes. This is death._

_And it's not so bad after all._

__


End file.
